Rainulf Drengot

Rainulf Drengot (died June 1045) was a Norman mercenary and Count of Aversa from 1030 to 1045.

Biography
Rainulf Drengot was born in Normandy to a Franco-Norse family of Normans, and, in 1016, he was exiled by Duke Richard II of Normandy for a violent criminal act. He and his brothers Osmond Drengot, Gilbert Buatere, Asclettin of Acerenza, and Ralph Drengot, alongside 250 other Norman warriors, decided to make a pilgrimage to the shrine of their patron saint, St. Michael, at Gargano in southern Italy. When they arrived in 1017, the Lombard noble Melus of Bari hired them to fight alongside him in his rebellion against the Byzantine Greek rulers of Apulia. The Norman adventurers were defeated at the Battle of Cannae in 1018, and Gilbert was killed. However, Rainulf found employment under Count Pandulf IV of Capua, a Byzantine sympathizer. In 1026, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry II deposed Pandulf and installed the Count of Teano as Count "Pandulf V of Capua". However, Drengot and his mercenaries, with Byzantine aid, reconquered Capua and restored Pandulf IV to power. Pandulf then besieged Naples, defended by the ill-prepared Duke Sergius IV of Naples. Rainulf knew that Norman dominance in southern Italy depended on no one ruler becoming too powerful, and, in 1029, the Normans switched sides and joined Sergius, driving Pandulf back to Capua. Sergius IV then made Rainulf Count of Aversa, giving the Normans Aversa and its surrounding lands for settlement. Though nominally Neapolitan vassals, the Normans of Aversa took advantage of the rivalries in the region to change allegiance whenever it benefited them. He died in 1045, and the House of Hauteville soon became the dominant Norman family in southern Italy.